What do you have for a freezer and how do you like it?

[minifarmer]

I have 2 chest freezers and a standup. My smallest chest freezer is half the size of the upright, but will hold everything in the upright, and still have room. If you want storage, go with a chest. If you want energy savings, go with a chest. My upright does that self defrost thing so I never get ice buildup like in the chest freezers, but it costs about double to run. Uprights cost more to purchase per square foot and hold less, but sometimes it's nice to be able to find stuff without having to empty half your freezer! (laundry baskets work wonders for that, though!) . Hope this help! Karla

 

[Lil_Chickadee]

I have one of each a chest freezer and a stand up. I like the chest freezer the best. It just holds more with plenty of room to spare.

 

[GardenGirl]

We have a chest and it holds more than our friend's stand up that actually has a little more cubic feet. If you are organized, then a chest isn't that bad. I made a simple map showing where each type of meat and veggie is stacked up, just to have a rough idea, and so my DH doesn't just go in and destroy the system when looking for a specific cut of venison or pork. Of course, he leaves the veggies alone.

 

[blueskylen]

Have always had a chest, but am tired of standing on my head to clean it , so we are getting an upright. my sister said to get rubber bins to put the packages in, so they don't slide out, and rubber won't crack in the cold like plastic. she also has a latch on hers to make sure the door is closed

we'll see which one we like best.

 

[brewmiss96]

I have a chest, but have had the same problem with digging through stuff to get stuff on the bottom. Has anyone tried using plastic bins, or maybe custom-made wood boxes to divide stuff up with, that way you can pull out a bin of chicken to get to the bin of lamb? That's what I've been thinking of doing.

Good point on the rubber versus plastic!

 

[minifarmer]

That is a good idea. The new chest freezers are usually sold with blue compartmentalizers (is that a word?) that divide the bottom half into 6 parts. This assumes you are somewhat organized to begin with and won't just throw a bunch of stuff on top....not that I ever would....usually...

karla

 

[mrsengeseth]

I have both. I like them for different things. For whole birds, i like my chest freezer. The birds are bigger and easier to see when they are in there even if there are a lot of them. I like my stand up freezer for broken down birds. I can organize the cuts into plastic bins (like the kind you can get at walmart, clear, for shoes i think) I can have bags of thighs in one bin, bags of breasts in another, bags of ground meats in another. If I tossed a few bags in the chest freezer, they'd get lost amidst the abyss of the bottom of the freezer. If I put a whole bird in the stand up, they'd take up a ton of valuable "real estate" in there.

 

[CoyoteMagic]

I haved a huge chest. Wish I had a basement or storage shed to put it in. It's too big to put some place in my house, so it sits on the back step. Not sure how big it is really, about 3ft x5ft.

This one has some baskets that slide. I also use milk crates to keep things seperated. Pork, chicken, and beef all have a different colored crate. Veggies go in the sliding baskets.

 

[Reinbeau]

I went with a chest freezer because when you open the door on an upright, the cold 'falls out' of the bottom - they use more energy. You just have to be organized with a chest (as others have noted).

 

[CoyoteMagic]

Quote:
Oh that's something I forgot. With a chest, when you "close the lid" it closes. Somebody (not me) "closed" the door of our upright freeze when I was a kid. Mom had just filled the freezer.................